Sunday, July 9, 2017

The Battle of Shady Hill

The Hill Dwarf General stared at the huge skeletal catapult in the gap between the forest and hills. Scouts had spotted the Undead army and he knew they were arrayed for battle on the other side of the forest. He knew his troops have to drive hard and fast to avoid being constantly pounded by the Vampire Lord's catapults.

The wooden rectangles were marking deployment areas. Should have removed them before taking the pictures. D'oh!

I packed up my Warband stuff and took it over to my friend Darby's house and we got in a game Saturday night. He played the Undead and I played the Hill Dwarfs. These were 500 pt armies.

During terrain placement I of course placed hills because they do not hamper movement for Hill Dwarfs if you give them the "Hill Walkers" ability, which I did. Darby placed forests to hamper my movement as a counter measure. Below is the placement of units before the battle began. I have my Noble Riders [NR] and Handgunners [HG] on the left. My goal was to run around the hill and hit the left flank with my riders and move the Handgunners up on the hill to fire down from the cover of trees. Darby placed his skeletal riders [SC] on his right as a counter to my cavalry. Darby placed his artillery in the middle of his army to have them immediately available to start pounding the Dwarfs during their approach.

After several turns the Hill Dwarfs have had some motivation issues and not made much progress in the advance. The Noble Riders have made the flank and one unit of Warriors has made the hill on the right flank. This has made them a prime target for the catapults and they have suffered some hits after reaching the top of the hill.

Fast forward several more turns and the bulk of both armies are engaged in a melee. The Noble Riders and Skeletal Cavalry are locked in a stalemate on the left. Darby managed to advance some Warriors on top of the forested hill making my Handgunners retreat and unable to take any shots. In the middle 2 units of Warriors are engaged with the Skeletal Warriors and Vampire Lord. The Necromancer and Skeletal Archers have both joined the large melee to provide flanking attacks on the Dwarfs. On the right Warriors from both armies are locked in melee. At this point both armies' artillery sit silently waiting for targets.

As the melees continued for several more turns both sides see progress. On the left, the Noble Riders have routed and the Handgunners are engaged before they even get to fire a volley. The Undead are winning on the left. Both sides artillery moved into position to start a duel. The Dwarf Artillery forced the Undead Catapults off the board, but not before they could route the Dwarf Spell Caster and put some wounds on the Dwarf Artillery. With the right flank still in a deadlock the major change takes place in the center. The second unit of Skeletal Warriors have been destroy and both the Vampire Lord and Necromancer are pushed back. The Dwarf Warriors 1 was also routed, but rallied after running past their General.

Next turn the Hill Dwarfs' left looks really bleak as the Handgunners are hit in the rear by the Skeletal Cavalry. Hill Dwarf sandwich anyone?

Luckily for the Handgunners they don't have to survive long because the next turn the Hill Dwarf General charges into the Vampire Lord and forces him off the table. At this point the Undead have lost over half their army points and break off the engagement.

I have to say it was a fun game and look forward to playing it again. I'll need to take another read through the rules to make sure I have everything correct this time, but overall, I thought this one went much smoother. I have been pretty focused on Infinity here lately, but I'm already wanting to start another army for Warband. :)

I wish I could, but I didn't make the hills. It was made by a company called the Terrain Guy. He no longer sells his products. He made them out of a rubber soft enough to carve into hill shapes. Then covered them in glue and flocking. As for the forest/grass I made that out of Teddy Bear fur.

I tell ya, had the dice not been against me I think my ambulatory corpses would have swamped you! Especially if your stunties hadn't had the perk that keeps them from falling back. I found it interesting that usually having more command points it was hard to capitalize on them until towards the end when we ended up all flanky and packed together. Lesson learned about being too close to the table edge! Next time I'll try to flog the shamblers into moving a little more forwards, though I was (rightly) afraid that with their low Motivation dice they'd be caught out of line by your rapid advances. (Damn you Hillwalker skill!!!)

I've been looking at minis and might have a few ideas for more armies... (sigh, yet another genre to dive into!)

No prob. It was fun. Yeah, you actually had some good dice, but resolute and shieldwall really helped me from being crushed by the Undead horde. Hey, new armies would be fun. At least 10mm is pretty fast to paint.

Oh, and I think those hills are made from "rubber foam" floor tiles, sort of softish interlocking tiles, usually used in kindergarten room floors and play areas. Come to think of it, haven't seen much of it anywhere in a while...